Techniques to configure media packages

ABSTRACT

Techniques to configure media packages are described. In one embodiment, an apparatus may comprise a client support component operative to receive search term information from a client device at a server device; and configure the client device with a selected one or more high-priority media items; a media server search component operative to transmit the search term information to a plurality of media servers; receive a plurality of media items from the plurality of media servers in response to the transmitting of the search term information to the plurality of media servers; and select the one or more high-priority media items from the plurality of media items based on priority weights; and a media item evaluation component operative to assign the priority weights to each of the plurality of media items. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/667,576, titled “Techniques to Share and Remix Media Through aMessaging System,” filed on Mar. 24, 2015, which is hereby incorporatedby reference in its entirety.

This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No.14/844,231, titled “Techniques to Share Application Data Through aMessaging System,” filed on Sep. 3, 2015, which is hereby incorporatedby reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

Users may interact with each other in a messaging system, sendingmessages back and forth to each other in a text-based conversationbetween two or more users. A user may have a user account associatedwith them in the messaging system, the user account providing an onlineidentity for the user, a destination for messages directed to the user,and generally coordinating the user's access to and use of the messagingsystem. A user may access the messaging system from a variety ofendpoints, including mobile devices (e.g., cellphones), desktopcomputers, web browsers, specialized messaging clients, etc.

SUMMARY

The following presents a simplified summary in order to provide a basicunderstanding of some novel embodiments described herein. This summaryis not an extensive overview, and it is not intended to identifykey/critical elements or to delineate the scope thereof. Some conceptsare presented in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detaileddescription that is presented later.

Various embodiments are generally directed to techniques to configuremedia packages. Some embodiments are particularly directed to techniquesto configure media packages using messaging information for a user. Inone embodiment, for example, an apparatus may comprise a client supportcomponent operative to receive search term information from a clientdevice at a server device; and configure the client device with aselected one or more high-priority media items; a media server searchcomponent operative to transmit the search term information to aplurality of media servers; receive a plurality of media items from theplurality of media servers in response to the transmitting of the searchterm information to the plurality of media servers; and select the oneor more high-priority media items from the plurality of media itemsbased on priority weights; and a media item evaluation componentoperative to assign the priority weights to each of the plurality ofmedia items. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, certainillustrative aspects are described herein in connection with thefollowing description and the annexed drawings. These aspects areindicative of the various ways in which the principles disclosed hereincan be practiced and all aspects and equivalents thereof are intended tobe within the scope of the claimed subject matter. Other advantages andnovel features will become apparent from the following detaileddescription when considered in conjunction with the drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a media configuration system.

FIG. 2A illustrates a user interface for a messaging client.

FIG. 2B illustrates a media item display section of a messaging client.

FIG. 2C illustrates a media item display in a messaging client.

FIG. 3 illustrates a media item search by a messaging client.

FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a logic flow for the system of FIG.1.

FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a centralized system for the systemof FIG. 1.

FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of a distributed system for the systemof FIG. 1.

FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of a computing architecture.

FIG. 8 illustrates an embodiment of a communications architecture.

FIG. 9 illustrates an embodiment of a radio device architecture.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Users of a messaging system may interact with each other using textsupplemented by media content, such as images, animated images, video,audio, and other media items. For example, a user may respond to orsupplement a comment regarding a sporting, film, or other media eventwith media content illustrating or reflecting a viewpoint on that mediaevent. Similarly, a user may respond to media content with other mediacontent in an attempt to continue a media interaction.

Users on mobile devices have access to a vast quantity of media contentdistributed through the Internet. Users may use a messaging client tocommunicate with friends, leveraging a wide variety of mediaapplications to store, explore, and discover such media as photographs,animations, movie clips, music, games, and informational content (e.g.,movie show times). While these media applications may support sharing,users may benefit from being empowered to import media into theirpreferred messaging client and share the media within the flow of amessaging conversation.

Users may therefore benefit from being presented with media contentrelevant to their current conversation and their particular preferences.Relevance to a user's particular preferences may depend on a user'shistory of media sharing, with everything from the type of media (e.g.,video or still) to the type of content (e.g., humorous or informative)being relevant, without limitation to other factors. Relevance to acurrent conversation may include both temporal indications such as thecurrent topic of discussion (e.g., a media event, a personal event) anda receiving user's or users' preference, such as the preference of thereceiving user(s) as to type of media or type of content. By beingquickly shown relevant media, a user may be empowered to incorporatemedia content into their conversations without interrupting the flow ofthe exchange. As a result, the embodiments can improve the messagingexperience, particularly in regards to the appropriateness of sharedmedia to the sender and/or receiver(s), increasing engagement with themessaging system by the sender and/or receiver(s).

Reference is now made to the drawings, wherein like reference numeralsare used to refer to like elements throughout. In the followingdescription, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details areset forth in order to provide a thorough understanding thereof. It maybe evident, however, that the novel embodiments can be practiced withoutthese specific details. In other instances, well known structures anddevices are shown in block diagram form in order to facilitate adescription thereof. The intention is to cover all modifications,equivalents, and alternatives consistent with the claimed subjectmatter.

It is worthy to note that “a” and “b” and “c” and similar designators asused herein are intended to be variables representing any positiveinteger. Thus, for example, if an implementation sets a value for a=5,then a complete set of components 122 illustrated as components 122-1through 122-a may include components 122-1, 122-2, 122-3, 122-4 and122-5. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram for a media configuration system 100.In one embodiment, the media configuration system 100 may comprise acomputer-implemented system having software applications comprising oneor more components. Although the media configuration system 100 shown inFIG. 1 has a limited number of elements in a certain topology, it may beappreciated that the media configuration system 100 may include more orless elements in alternate topologies as desired for a givenimplementation.

A user's access to an media configuration system 100 may be a messagingclient 140 installed as a user application on a client device 120 andexecuting locally on the client device. In some cases, the messagingclient 140 may include other functionality. For example, the messagingclient 140 may be a front-end to a social-networking service, providingmessaging services in association with the social-networking service. Inmany cases, this client device 120 may be a smartphone, cell phone, orother mobile device using a mix of Wi-Fi and cellular data networks toaccess the Internet and networked resources, though it will beappreciated that any form of network access may be used. For example,one device may tether to another, such as a smart watch tethering to aInternet-capable device (e.g., mobile phone, personal computer) or amobile phone tethering to a personal computer. The client device mayexecute a plurality of applications, including the messaging client 140,one or more media applications 130, and other user applications. Inother embodiments, however, the client device may comprise a personalcomputer device, a portable digital assistant, a tablet device, or anyother form of computing device. Similarly, in some situations andembodiments, a user may access the media configuration system 100 via aweb portal, with the messaging client 140 executing as a web-basedapplication.

The client device 120 may communicate with other devices using wirelesstransmissions to exchange network traffic. Exchanging network traffic,such as may be included in the exchange of messaging transactions, maycomprise transmitting and receiving network traffic via a networkinterface controller 125 (NIC). A NIC comprises a hardware componentconnecting a computer device, such as client device, to a computernetwork. The NIC may be associated with a software network interfaceempowering software applications to access and use the NIC. Networktraffic may be received over the computer network as signals transmittedover data links. The network traffic may be received by capturing thesesignals and interpreting them. The NIC may receive network traffic overthe computer network and transfer the network traffic to memory storageaccessible to software applications using a network interfaceapplication programming interface (API). The network interfacecontroller 125 may be used for the network activities of the embodimentsdescribed herein, including the interoperation of the media applications130, media servers 135, messaging client 140, and media support server170 through network communication. For example, the messaging client 140transmitting search term information to a media support server 170 orreceiving a selected media package 115 from a media support server 170may be interpreted as using the network interface controller 125 fornetwork access to a communications network for the transmission orreception of information.

The media applications 130 may comprise applications for one or more ofsearching media content, discovering media content, sharing mediacontent, storing media content, accessing media content, modifying mediacontent, and combining media content. Each of the media applications maybe associated one or more media services, either a dedicated mediaapplication for a particular media service or a media applicationinteroperating with a plurality of media services. Each of the mediaservices may provide one or more media servers 135 for storing,retrieving, and generally exchanging media content. In some embodiments,one or more of the media servers 135 may be internal to a messagingsystem, with the messaging system providing media content that may beintermingled with media content from third-party media servicesproviding other media content.

The media servers 135 may distribute media packages 110 to the localmedia application 130 comprising bundles of media packages, wherein eachof the media packages 110 comprises a media item (a particular instanceof media content) and associated information. The media servers 135 maydistribute the media packages 115 to a media support server 170 for theredistribution of at least a portion of the media packages 115 to amessaging client 140. The collection of the media packages 115 from themedia servers 135 may be performed in response to searches of the mediaservers 135 by the media support server 170, such as may be performedbased on the messaging client 140 submitting search term information 105to the media support server 170.

The messaging client 140 may comprise a media management component 160.The media management component 160 may be generally arranged to managemedia content within the context of the messaging client 140. The mediamanagement component 160 may make media content available to a user ofthe client device 120 for messaging in the media configuration system100 and therefore for exchange with other users. The media managementcomponent 160 may operate as a crossroads for media from the pluralityof media applications 130, presenting a unified view of and unifiedmanagement for a user of the media content of the media applications130. The media management component 160 may empower the messaging client140 to interoperate with the plurality of media applications 130,receiving media content from the media applications 130, submittingmedia content to the media applications 130, invoking the viewing ofexisting media content within the media applications 130, and movingmedia content from one of the media applications 130 to another.

The messaging client 140 may comprise a messaging component 150. Themessaging component 150 may be generally arranged to provide messagingservices to a user of the client device 120. Messaging services maycomprise the reception of messages, the sending of messages, themaintenance of a history of messages exchanged, and othermessaging-related activities. User of the messaging client 140 may beempowered to engage in messaging conversations with a plurality of otherusers in both private user-to-user conversations, in private groupconversations between three or more users, and in public conversationsgenerally open to the messaging community. The messaging component 150may interoperate with the media management component 160 to enrich anyof these messaging conversations with the media content management bythe media management component 160.

The media configuration system 100 may interact with messaging serversfrom among a plurality of messaging servers. A media support server 170may operate as an intermediary between the messaging endpoints of usersof the media configuration system 100. Messaging servers may track thecurrent network address of a user's active messaging endpoint orendpoints, such as they change network (e.g., a mobile client device 120moving between Wi-Fi networks, between cellular data networks, andbetween Wi-Fi and cellular data networks). Messaging servers may queuemessages for messaging endpoints when they are offline or otherwise notaccepting new messages. Messaging servers may provide an ordering onmessages for a particular user so as to provide consistency in the flowof communication between the potentially multiple messaging endpointsthat a user might use. Messaging servers may store a messaging historyfor each user so as to provide access to previously-sent or receivedmessages for a user. The messaging history may include media exchangedbetween users using the media configuration system 100.

The messaging component 150 may determine search term information 105based on a messaging conversation. The messaging component 150 maytransmit the search term information 105 to a media support server 170as a request to perform a media search based on the search terminformation 105. The media support server 170 may distribute the searchterm information 105 across a plurality of media servers 135 to performthe requested search. In some embodiments, the media support server 170may augment or supplement the search term information 105 received fromthe client device 120 with user information for sending and/or receivinguser(s) to form the search term information 105 transmitted to the mediaservers 135.

Search term information 105 may be defined explicitly by the user. Auser may enter text in a search field and request media items related tothe text entered in a search field. A user may select search terminformation 105 within a messaging interaction, such as by selecting oneor more words using a touchscreen and requesting a media search based onthe one or more words. Similarly, a user may select one or more mediaitems and request a media search be performed for related media content.Search term information 105 may additionally or alternatively beautomatically extracted from the text of a messaging interaction. Insome cases, text may be automatically extracted based on it being markedin the text by the user, such as by being prepended or appended with aparticular symbol, for example by prepending with the pound symbol, ‘#’,as may be described as a “hashtag.” In some cases, text may beautomatically extracted based on it being recognized as a possiblekeyword. Common keywords may be determined based on their commonassociation with media items and then, when detected, used as searchterm information 105 when present in a messaging interaction. It will beappreciated that these techniques may be combined. For example, a mediasearch may be manually initiated by a user based on an explicit searchterm, with the search term information 105 supplemented by an extractedhashtag, keyword, and/or other data.

The media support server 170 may receive a plurality of media packages110 from the plurality of media servers 135, the media packages 110comprising one or more media items selected by the plurality of mediaservers 135 based on the search term information 105. The media supportserver 170 may select one or more media items from the plurality ofmedia packages 110 based on various criteria, such as may relate to thesending user, receiving user(s), and the media services/applicationassociated with the media servers 135. The media support server 170 maytransmit the selected one or more media items to the client device 120as a selected media package 115. The media management component 160 mayreceive the selected media package 115, store the selected media package115, and present one or more media items from the selected media package115 to the user in association with the user's messaging activity, suchas may have generated at least a portion of the search term information105.

Messages transmitted via the messaging server may include one or moremedia items. Where a media item for transmission is already stored onthe media support server 170 or on a media server accessible to themedia configuration system 100 the media support server 170 may refrainfrom transmitting the media item to the client device 120. A mediaserver may generate or retrieve a hash of a media item and transmit thehash to the media support server 170 to determine whether a media itemis already available in the media configuration system 100. The mediasupport server 170 may indicate whether a media item is alreadyavailable and therefore should not be re-transmitted. The media supportserver 170 may request the receipt of a media item from a media serverwhen a media item is not determined to be available based on the hash.Similarly, where a media item is represented as a uniform resourcelocator (URL) to a network-accessible source, the immediate transmissionof a media item as part of a media package (e.g., a media package of theplurality of media packages 110 or the selected media package 115) maybe avoided. These techniques may serve to reduce the bandwidth used insharing media items. By using the unified platform of the mediaconfiguration system 110, the bandwidth usage of sharing media items maybe reduced as the media configuration system 110 has visibility into thenetwork locations of network-accessible media items and may store mediaitems from a plurality of media application sources using hashing toeliminate duplicate transmissions. This reduction of bandwidth usage mayincrease the speed of media sharing, reduce the usage of a user'sbandwidth allocation from a cellular provider, and eliminate the batteryusage that may be involved in performing the upload of a applicationitem, thereby reducing the overall battery usage for media sharing.

A media item may be managed and manipulated by the media configurationsystem 100 according to a variety of techniques in various embodiments.In some cases, the media item may be directly stored as computer datarepresentation within a media package such as media packages 110 orselected media package 115. For example, an image media item may bestored as a Joint Photographic Expert Group (JPEG) digital image filewithin a media package. In other cases, the media item may be stored asa reference within a media package, the reference comprising a resourcelocator—such as a URL—providing a network-accessible address for themedia item. As such, while the media management component 160 mayretrieve and cache an instance of the media item on the client device120 for local access, the media item may be received using the resourcelocator so as to avoid using excessive bandwidth in the transmission ofselected media package 115. In particular, the media support server 170may evaluate the media items referenced by the media packages 110without evaluation of the specific media items—depending instead onreceived media information about the media items. Instead, the mediasupport server 170 and/or the messaging client 140 on the client device120 may receive the media item as the resource locator and fetch aninstance of the media item after receiving the resource locator. Thismay reduce the use of bandwidth for the media support server 170 and/orclient device 120. Alternatively, the media support server 170 may cacheor retrieve the media item and include it with the selected mediapackage 115 when delivering the selected media package 115 to the clientdevice 120. Similarly, one or more of the media servers 135 may transmitan encoding of the media item(s) with the media package transmitted tothe media support server 170. It will be appreciated that, in general,any known technique for formatting and storing media content may beused. In some cases, the media configuration system 100 may re-size,re-code, change the format, or change the quality level of a media itemprior to uploading or prior to transmission to a client device 120. Thismay be performed to reduce the storage space used in storing a mediaitem or the bandwidth used in uploading or downloading the media item.Similarly, where a messaging client 140 transmits a media item to areceiving client device, such as part of a messaging conversation, themedia item may be transmitted as a reference rather than as encodeddata.

The media configuration system 100 may use knowledge generated frominteractions in between users. The media configuration system 100 maycomprise a component of a social-networking service and may useknowledge generated from the broader interactions of thesocial-networking service. As such, to protect the privacy of the usersof the media configuration system 100 and the larger social-networkingservice, media configuration system 100 may include an authorizationserver (or other suitable component(s)) that allows users to opt in toor opt out of having their actions logged by the media configurationsystem 100 or shared with other systems (e.g., third-party systems), forexample, by setting appropriate privacy settings. A privacy setting of auser may determine what information associated with the user may belogged, how information associated with the user may be logged, wheninformation associated with the user may be logged, who may loginformation associated with the user, whom information associated withthe user may be shared with, and for what purposes informationassociated with the user may be logged or shared. Authorization serversor other authorization components may be used to enforce one or moreprivacy settings of the users of the media configuration system 100 andother elements of a social-networking service through blocking, datahashing, anonymization, or other suitable techniques as appropriate. Forexample, while interactions between users of a social-networking serviceand the social-networking service may be used to learn media contentpreferences and the relationship between preferences for differentpieces of media content, these interactions may be anonymized prior toor as part of the learning process.

FIG. 2A illustrates a user interface 200 for a messaging client 140 on aclient device 120.

In the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 2A, the messaging client 140 isdisplaying a message thread 210. The illustrated message thread 210corresponds to a private messaging conversation between two users,though it will be appreciated that the described embodiments may beapplied to conversations between more than two users, such as groupconversation. A first user, the user of the client device 120, isvisually represented in the message thread 210 by a user avatar 205associated with their user account for the media configuration system100. A second user, the user of a second client device, is visuallyrepresented in the message thread 210 by a second user avatar 207associated with their respective user account for the mediaconfiguration system 100.

The user of client device 120 and the messaging client 140 may use textcontrols 215 to enter textual elements of the message thread 210, suchas text messages for transmission to a second user on a second clientdevice. It will be appreciated that while the text controls 215 andother controls of the messaging client 140 are depicted astouch-controls on a touch screen that other controls, including ahardware keyboard and hardware pointer control, may be used with otherembodiments.

The user interface 200 includes a messaging client share control 220.The messaging client share control 220 may be used to manually initiatethe inclusion of images, audio, video, or other media content. It willbe appreciated that additional and alternative sharing controls may beincluded in various embodiments. For example, while in the illustratedembodiment the sharing control is universal across media types, inanother embodiment a plurality of share controls may be used dividedamongst content type (i.e., image, animated image, video, and audio). Insome cases, sharing controls may be provided for specific forms ofcontent, such as stickers, songs, smilies, emoji, GIFs, and othercategories of media content.

The user of the messaging client 140 may select the messaging clientshare control 220 to initiate the selection of media content for sharingin the message thread 210 with another user. In some embodiments, themessaging client share control 220 may be displayed without the adjacenttext controls 215. In some embodiments, a variety of controls may bedisplayed along the bottom of the user interface 200 for the messagingclient 140, with one of the variety of controls invoking the textcontrols 215 and others one or more of various varieties of sharingcontrols dedicated to various types of media content.

FIG. 2B illustrates a media item display section 235 of a messagingclient 140.

In the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 2B, the user interface 225 isdisplaying media item display section 235. The media item displaysection 235 displays media content comprising a plurality of mediaitems. In this example, the plurality of media items each comprise ananimation (e.g., an animated Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) image).However, in other cases the media items may each comprise a video (e.g.,film clip, movie), audio segment (e.g., song, voice recording), stillimage, any other type of media item, or any combination of differenttypes of media item. The media item display section 235 may be operativeto be manipulated via user interface commands to display additionalcontents, such as by a scrolling command. It will be appreciated that amedia item display section 235 may vary in size and quantity of mediadisplayed in various cases and embodiments.

In some cases, the media item display section 235 may be displayed inresponse to an explicit user request, such as the selection of amessaging client share control 220 as described with reference to FIG.2A. However, in some embodiments a media item display section 235 may beautomatically displayed in response to an automatically-initiated mediasearch, such as in response to a media search automatically initiatedbased on a keyword automatically extracted from the message thread 210.Further, in some embodiments a media item display section 235 may beleft visible through the performance of a messaging conversation, beingregularly updated based on the changing contents and context of amessaging interaction. Where a constantly-visible orautomatically-displayed media item display section 235 is used, asmaller-size version may be used, such as with only one row of mediaitems. Where a constantly-visible or automatically-displayed media itemdisplay section 235 is used, it may be displayed in combination withother messaging controls, such as the text controls 215 described withreference to FIG. 2A.

The media items displayed in the media item display section 235 may besorted according to a variety of techniques. Each of the media items maybe assigned a priority weight based on an evaluation of theappropriateness of each of the media items to the message thread 210,including the users involved and current content of the message thread210. The media items may be displayed in the media item display section235 in an order determined by the priority weights, with the itemssorted such that the items with the highest priority weight aredisplayed first and most prominently.

In the illustrated embodiment, the media item display section 235 isdisplaying a collection of animations gathered from a plurality of mediaapplication and collected together in a single view based on theselection of the animations for the user of the client device 120 foruse in the present message thread 210. The collection of media items mayhave been communicated to the messaging client 140 on the client device120 via the selected media package 115. The selected media package 115may contain or reference additional animations beyond those presentlyvisible in the media item display section 235. For example, additionalanimations may be viewable through user interaction with the media itemdisplay section 235, such as through scrolling the media item displaysection 235 using touchscreen or other user input.

Other categories of media content may be made available to the user ofthe messaging client 140. For example, as illustrated, the user may beable to select an images section by selecting an images tab for themedia item display section 235. Similarly, the user may be presentedwith an audio section, a video section, or other section. The user mayalso be presented with sections organized according to other criteria.For instance, a “popular” section may be presented, be populated withpopular, trending, or otherwise noteworthy media elements as determinedby the media configuration system 100 or a particular media application.

In another example, as illustrated, the user may be able to select a“history” section by selecting a history tab for the media elementdisplay section 235. A history section may be populated with every mediaelement shared by a particular user. A history section may be populatedwith every media element shared within a particular conversation, suchas the message thread 210, by either user so as to allow either user (orany user in a group conversation) to reference the media history fortheir shared conversation.

In another example, the user may be able to select a “recommended”section by selecting a “recommended” tab for the media element displaysection 235. A recommended section may be populated with media elementsrecommended to the user by the media configuration system 100, with thecontents of the recommended section including media of various types(e.g., intermingling two or more of still images, animated images,audio, and video). Media may be recommended based on indiscriminatepromotion to all users of the media configuration system 100, may berecommended based on specific promotion to this user, and may berecommended based on specific promotion based on the particular messagethread 210, including being based on either or both on the other user(s)contributing to the message thread 210 and analysis of the content ofthe message thread 210.

In general, a variety of criteria may be used individually or incombination to determine the media elements displayed in a media itemdisplay section 235. Media content of predicted interest to a user maybe promoted based on explicit and implicit signals. Explicit signals maycomprise explicitly-entered information about a user, such as theexplicit registration of age/birth date, gender, location of residence,schooling, likes and dislikes, and any other explicit indication ofdirect interest or association with a category that may suggest acorrelation between the interests of different users. Implicit signalsmay comprise implicitly-determined information about a user, such asinformation gathered from messaging conversations, automaticgeolocation, uploaded photographs, shared media, or other uses of themedia configuration system 100 or a social-networking service that arenot primarily oriented towards the registration of information butinstead oriented towards the use of the system or service while stillproviding data that may correlate to particular likes or dislikes.

Further, the particular context of the message thread 210 may be used.For example, the media configuration system 100 may provideevent-related media elements in response to a conversation identified aspertaining to an event, such as a sporting match, news event, or othertype of happening. The media configuration system 100 may providetopic-related media elements in response to a conversation identified aspertaining to a topic, such as a sports, movies, food, or otherconversational topics. The media configuration system 100 may providepersonally-relevant media elements in response to a conversationaddressing or being between particular people, such as promotingrecently-uploading photos of a couple in a message thread 210 betweenthe participants in a couple. The media configuration system 100 mayparticularly promote media elements related to a media element recentlyshared by an other party in a message thread 210, such as by findingmedia elements on a similar topic, of a similar subject, or otherwisewith a relationship to a recently-shared media element.

The user may be empowered to select a particular media elements from theplurality of media elements displayed in the media item display section235 and to have that selected media element included in the messagethread 210.

FIG. 2C illustrates a media item display in a messaging client 140. Inthe illustrated embodiment of FIG. 2C, the first user has elected toshare a media item corresponding to an image of a cricket batter andthis image has been incorporated into the flow of the message thread210. While in the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 2C the comment from thefirst user “Did you catch the game last night?” is entered as a distinctline in the messaging conversation, it will be appreciated that in otherembodiments such a comment may be optionally included as a caption forthe media item as such functionality may be provided by the messagingclient 140.

FIG. 3 illustrates a media item search by a messaging client 140 beingprocessed by a media support server 170.

The media support server 170 may comprise a plurality of components. Thecomponents may comprise software and/or hardware elements. Thecomponents may comprise a plurality of routines operative to performparticular tasks. The media support server 170 may comprise a clientsupport component 340, media server search component 350, and a mediaitem customization component 360.

A client support component 340 may be generally arranged to act as afront-end to the server support services of the media configurationsystem 100 for client devices, receiving requests and responding to therequests to aid the client devices in performing media functions. Aclient support component 340 may comprise a client media search routineoperative to receive search term information 105 from a client device120, the search term information 105 received in conjunction with and inthe performance of a media search request. A client support component340 may comprise a client media configuration routine operative toconfigure the client device 120 with a selected one or morehigh-priority media items in response to the received search terminformation 105.

A media server search component 350 may be generally arranged to performsearches and requests for media content with one or more media servers135. The media server search component 350 may be generally arranged toreceive one or more media packages 110 from the media servers 135 inresponse to the requests for media content performed using the searchterm information 105. The media server search component 350 may comprisea media search routine operative to transmit the search term information105 to a plurality of media servers 135 as an element of a request formedia content. The media server search component 350 may comprise amedia reception routine operative to receive a plurality of media itemsfrom the plurality of media servers 135 in response to the transmittingof the search term information 105 to the plurality of media servers135. The plurality of media items may be received as elements of aplurality of media packages 110. In some cases, one or more of theplurality of media servers 135 may not return a response to a searchrequest and/or a response to a search request may be not be consideredby the media support server 170 due to, for example, the response takinglonger than an allowed amount of time to respond. The media serversearch component 350 may comprise a selected media package generationroutine operative to select the one or more high-priority media itemsfrom the plurality of media items based on assigned priority weights315. The media server search component 350 may generate the selectedmedia package 115 and transmit the selected media package 115 to theclient support component 340.

Selecting the one or more high-priority media items from the pluralityof media items based on assigned priority weights 315 may be performedaccording to a variety of techniques. In one embodiment, a threshold maybe defined, and all media items meeting or exceeding the threshold maybe included in the selected media package 115. In another embodiment, aset number of media items may be defined, and the highest-priority mediaitems up to the limit of the set number of media items may be includedin the selected media package 115. These techniques may be also becombined, in which only those media items meeting or exceeding thethreshold are included in the selected media package 115, but with alimit of a set number of media items for inclusion, with only thehighest-priority media items included where more media items meet orexceed the threshold than allowed for by the set limit.

A media item evaluation component 360 may be generally arranged toevaluate the received plurality of media items according to the sendinguser information, receiving user information, message contextinformation, and/or other contextual information. The media itemevaluation component 360 may comprise a priority weight assignmentroutine operative to assign priority weights 315 to each of theplurality of media items. The media item evaluation component 315 maygenerate the priority weights 315 assigned to the media items andtransmit the priority weights 315 to the media server search component350.

The media item evaluation component 360 may evaluate each of theplurality of media items according to one or more rules, with each rulereflecting a condition that, if met, results in an assignment of apriority weight to a media item or a modification of a priority weightassigned to a media item. In some embodiments, each media item mayinitially receive a default priority weight, be evaluated according tothe one or more rules, and result in a final priority weight determinedaccording to one or more priority weight modifications that may beapplied according to the one or more priority weight rules. These rulesmay operate according to metadata for the media items without evaluationof the encoding of the media items themselves. A priority weight rulemay specify that media items with metadata meeting a particular criteriashould be modified according to the addition, subtraction,multiplication, division, or other mathematical operation using apredefined value.

The media configuration system 100 may preference media items with asmaller file size, or a file size below a particular threshold,particularly where one or more client devices involved in a messaginginteraction are using a cellular data connection. In particular, wherethe sender client device 120 is operating on a cellular data network,smaller file sizes may be preferred due to client device 120 beingconfigured to download a plurality of media items, such that the size ofthe media items is of particular importance both in reducing overallbandwidth usage (as may impact a user's cellular data allocation) and inimproving performance (due to the lower network performance of manycellular data networks). As such, the client support component 340 maycomprise a network evaluation routine operative to determine that theclient device 120 is on a cellular data network, the cellular datanetwork the current data network being used for a media search. Thenetwork evaluation routine may evaluate according to network addressinginformation included with network packets received from the clientdevice 120, network metadata information included with network packetsreceived from the client device 120, network-identification informationincluded by the client device 120 in its communication with the mediasupport server 170, and/or according to other network-identificationtechniques. The media item evaluation component 360 may be operative todetermine one or more small-file-size media items of the plurality ofmedia items and add a predetermined small-file-size weight boost to thepriority weights for the one or more small-file size media items basedon the determining that the client device 120 is on the cellular datanetwork. Determining the one or more small-file-size media items maycomprise comparing a size of the plurality of media items to apredetermined file-size threshold, with the small-file-size weight boostadded to the media items falling below the predetermined file-sizethreshold.

The media configuration system 100 may preference media items fromparticular media servers based on those media servers being associatedwith a preferred media service. The media item evaluation component 360may be operative to identify one or more preferred-partner media itemsreceived from one or more preferred-partner media servers of theplurality of media servers 135. The media item evaluation component 360may be operative to add a preferred-partner weight boost to the priorityweights for the one or more preferred-partner media items based on theidentifying of the one or more preferred-partner media items as beingreceived from the one or more preferred-partner media servers.

Preferred media services may be determined according to a variety oftechniques, some of which may be used in parallel. In some embodiments,preferred status may be assigned manually based on an agreement for thepromotion of a particular media service. In some embodiments, a servicemay be preferred based on the historic popularity of the service. Themedia configuration system 100 may assign the one or morepreferred-partner media servers a preferred-partner status based on ahistoric use rate of previous media items distributed by the one or morepreferred-partner media servers. In some cases, preferred status may beassigned to increase the priority weight of services with a highhistoric use rate—such as a historic use rate in a predefined toppercentage of all services—so as to preferentially provide users withmedia content from services which have proven popular. Alternatively,preferred status may be assigned to the increase the priority weight ofunderused services, increasing the priority weight of media itemsreceived from less-commonly used services.

Popular media items may be promoted based on their popularity. A mediaitem may be determined as popular based on the historic sharing rate forthe media item, such as where the historic sharing rate exceeds apredefined sharing rate threshold. The media item evaluation component360 may identify one or more popular media items based on a historicsharing rate for the one or more popular media items and add apopular-item weight boost to the one or more popular media items. Thehistoric sharing rate may be determined as a percentage, proportion, orratio reflecting the number of times that a media item is selected forsharing by a user out of the number of times that the media item ispresented to the user as an option for sharing.

Similarly, unpopular media items may be demoted based on their lack ofpopularity. The media item evaluation component 360 may identify one ormore unpopular media items based on a historic sharing rate for the oneor more unpopular media items indicating that a historic sharing ratefor the one or more unpopular media items falls below an unpopularitythreshold, wherein the historic sharing rate represents a comparisonbetween how often a media item is shared and how often the media item isoffered for sharing. The media item evaluation component 360 may thensubtract an unpopular-item weight penalty from the one or more unpopularmedia items.

In some cases, a duplicate media item may be received from two or moremedia servers. The media server search component 350 may that two ormore of the plurality of media items are duplicate media items andeliminate all but one of the duplicate media items from considerationbased on the identification of that duplication. The media server searchcomponent 350 may determine which of the duplicate media items to retainin consideration based on various criteria. These criteria may depend onthe media service, and therefore media server, from which a duplicatemedia item was received. The media server search component 350 mayeliminate one or more of the duplicate media items, wherein the one ormore of the duplicate media items are selected for eliminating based onan identification of an associated media server.

In some embodiments, eliminating one or more of the duplicate mediaitems may be performed based on network transmission performance of oneor more associated media servers, such as by selecting for retention theduplicate media item from the media server with the highest networkperformance of the media servers that submitted the duplicate media itemin a media package 110. Network performance may be determined based onnetwork statistics generated by the media configuration system 100(which may include the media support server 170, client devices, and/orother components of the media configuration system 100) that may reflectthe average or otherwise representative delay between a media item beingrequested from a media server and the media item being completelyreceived from the media server by a device.

Alternatively, less-used media services may be promoted where duplicatemedia items are detected. Each of the plurality of media servers 135 maybe associated with a particular media service or media application. Anew or less-used media service may be promoted to increase the diversityof media service options by preferentially selected a less-used mediaservice for duplicate media items. One or more media servers 135 may beassigned a less-used media server status manually or automatically (suchas based on historic use rates) and automatically selected whereduplicate media items are detected.

The search term information 105 received from the client device 120 maybe associated with a messaging interaction between a sending userassociated with the client device 120 and a recipient user associatedwith a separate client device. The media configuration system 100 may begenerally arranged to promote media content to the sending user that ispredicted to be well-received by the recipient user. The media itemevaluation component 360 may identify one or more recipient-appropriatemedia items based on a historic reply rate for the recipient user andadd a recipient-preference boost to the one or morerecipient-appropriate media items.

In some embodiments, the one or more recipient-appropriate media itemsmay be selected based on a correspondence between one or more mediatypes of the one or more recipient-appropriate media items and adetected user preference for the one or more media types based on thehistoric reply rate for the recipient user. The historic reply rate maybe determined based on how often the recipient user responds to theposting of a particular type of media content, such as through thesending of text and/or media content in reply to the reception of thatmedia content. Alternatively or additionally, recipient-appropriatemedia items may be identified based on the receiving user's own sendinghistory, such as by selecting recipient-appropriate media items based ona correspondence between one or more media types of the one or morerecipient-appropriate media items and a detected user preference for theone or more media types based on the historic send history for therecipient user.

In some embodiments, these rules may be, at least in part, automaticallydetermined. For instance, a rule may capture an evaluation of therelationship between a particular factor of a media item (media type,content type, one or more keywords) and the popularity of that factorwith the sender, the receiver(s), or users in general. Based on amessaging history and/or media sharing history for the sender, thereceiver(s), and/or the user population of a messaging system, apopularity of various factors may be determined, providing either apositive boost or a negative penalty for particular factors. Thisrelative popularity may be used to, at least in part, determine thepriority weights of media items. A correlation between sending rateand/or reply rate may be determined for a particular factor for any oreach of the sender, receiver(s), or users in general. Where thiscorrelation is positive a positive factor boost may be added to thepriority weight for media items matching that factor for the sender (ifthe correlation is specifically detected for the sender), for thereceiver (if the correlation is specifically detected for the receiver),or for users in general (if the correlation is specifically detected forusers in general). Similarly, where this correlation is negative anegative factor penalty may be subtracted from the priority weight formedia items matching that factor for the sender (if the correlation isspecifically detected for the sender), for the receiver (if thecorrelation is specifically detected for the receiver), or for users ingeneral (if the correlation is specifically detected for users ingeneral.

Where the search term information 105 is associated with a messaginginteraction, a history of that messaging interaction may be used tobolster the search term information 105 when sending the search terminformation 105 to the plurality of media servers 135. The media serversearch component 350 may be operative to include at least a portion of amedia content history for the messaging interaction with the search terminformation transmitted to the plurality of media servers. The mediacontent history may comprise a plurality of keywords associated withmedia items exchanged in the messaging interaction. The mediaconfiguration system 100 may maintain, in association with a messaginginteraction, the keywords for media items exchanged in the messaginginteraction. One or more of these keywords may be added to the searchterm information 105 and transmitted to the media servers 135. In someembodiments, only the most recent—as may be defined in absolute numberand/or defined according to temporal proximity—keywords may be used,such as may increase the relevance of the included keywords to thecurrent context of a messaging interaction.

In some embodiments, keywords may be received from applications asmetadata in association with application data received from theapplications. These keywords may be used as at least a portion of thesearch term information 105. Application data may include media contentsuch as a media item. Application data may include reservationinformation, appointment information, travel information, personalinformation, or any other information received from an application andincluded in a messaging interaction. The providing of the keywordsreceived from applications to media applications as at least a portionof the search term information 105 may therefore compriseapplication-to-application communication mediated by the messagingclient 140.

In some embodiments, the media server search component 350 may comprisea media search caching routine operative to cache the plurality of mediaitems in association with the search term information 105. This cachingmay be only be operative for a limited period of time to avoid theresults becoming outdated, such as by setting an expiration time periodfor all cached results. The media server search component 350 maycompare search term information 105 to other recently-received searchterm information and where they exactly match re-use the previousresults. Because the received media items are further evaluatedaccording to messaging context, this may still result in the searchingclient devices receiving different selected media packages due todiffering messaging context. For example, a search for “football” mayresult in a same plurality of media items, but one client device mayreceive a selected media package oriented towards animated images whileanother client device receives a selected media package oriented towardsstill images due to differing preferences of their respective sendingand/or receiving users.

In some embodiments, the media configuration system 100 may accommodatefor differences between the languages used by different media servers orwithin different messaging conversations, or for a variety of languagesbeing used within a particular media server or messaging conversation.The media server search component 350 may translate at least a portionof the search term information from a first language to a secondlanguage prior to transmitting the search term information to at leastone media server of the plurality of media servers, the portion of thesearch term information transmitted to the at least one media server inthe second language. The media server search component 350 may use anyknown translation technique, including, without limitation, akeyword-to-keyword map for the first language and the second language.The media server search component 350 may translate from the firstlanguage to the second language based on a determination that a mediaserver primarily or partially supports keywords in the second language.

Where a messaging interaction comprises a group conversation, priorityweight schemes, priority weight rules, and other techniques fordetermining priority weights that regard the preferences of a receivinguser may be applied for each of the receiving users in the groupconversation. For instance, the priority weight for a media item may besubject to positive and negative adjustments for each of the receivingusers in a group using the same techniques as described with referenceto single receiver users, such as the evaluation of media type orcontent type preferences. In some embodiments, to prevent receivinggroup preferences from overwhelming the sender preferences, the effectof receiver priority weight adjustments may be reduced. For instance,any priority weight adjustments tied to a receiver may be divided by thenumber of receivers. This results in single-receiver cases (i.e.,one-on-one conversations) being unaffected, while group conversationseffectively have the preferences of the plurality of receivers averagedacross all of the receiving users.

Included herein is a set of flow charts representative of exemplarymethodologies for performing novel aspects of the disclosedarchitecture. While, for purposes of simplicity of explanation, the oneor more methodologies shown herein, for example, in the form of a flowchart or flow diagram, are shown and described as a series of acts, itis to be understood and appreciated that the methodologies are notlimited by the order of acts, as some acts may, in accordance therewith,occur in a different order and/or concurrently with other acts from thatshown and described herein. For example, those skilled in the art willunderstand and appreciate that a methodology could alternatively berepresented as a series of interrelated states or events, such as in astate diagram. Moreover, not all acts illustrated in a methodology maybe required for a novel implementation.

FIG. 4 illustrates one embodiment of a logic flow 400. The logic flow400 may be representative of some or all of the operations executed byone or more embodiments described herein.

In the illustrated embodiment shown in FIG. 4, the logic flow 400 mayreceive search term information from a client device at a server deviceat block 402.

The logic flow 400 may transmit the search term information to aplurality of media servers at block 404.

The logic flow 400 may receive a plurality of media items from theplurality of media servers in response to the transmitting of the searchterm information to the plurality of media servers at block 406.

The logic flow 400 may assign priority weights to each of the pluralityof media items at block 408.

The logic flow 400 may select one or more high-priority media items fromthe plurality of media items based on the assigned priority weights atblock 410.

The logic flow 400 may configure the client device with the selected oneor more high-priority media items at block 412.

The embodiments are not limited to this example.

FIG. 5 illustrates a block diagram of a centralized system 500. Thecentralized system 500 may implement some or all of the structure and/oroperations for the media configuration system 100 in a single computingentity, such as entirely within a single centralized server device 520.

The centralized server device 520 may comprise any electronic devicecapable of receiving, processing, and sending information for the mediaconfiguration system 100. Examples of an electronic device may includewithout limitation an ultra-mobile device, a mobile device, a personaldigital assistant (PDA), a mobile computing device, a smart phone, atelephone, a digital telephone, a cellular telephone, ebook readers, ahandset, a one-way pager, a two-way pager, a messaging device, acomputer, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, a laptopcomputer, a notebook computer, a netbook computer, a handheld computer,a tablet computer, a server, a server array or server farm, a webserver, a network server, an Internet server, a work station, amini-computer, a main frame computer, a supercomputer, a networkappliance, a web appliance, a distributed computing system,multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, consumer electronics,programmable consumer electronics, game devices, television, digitaltelevision, set top box, wireless access point, base station, subscriberstation, mobile subscriber center, radio network controller, router,hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine, or combination thereof. Theembodiments are not limited in this context.

The centralized server device 520 may execute processing operations orlogic for the media configuration system 100 using a processingcomponent 530. The processing component 530 may comprise varioushardware elements, software elements, or a combination of both. Examplesof hardware elements may include devices, logic devices, components,processors, microprocessors, circuits, processor circuits, circuitelements (e.g., transistors, resistors, capacitors, inductors, and soforth), integrated circuits, application specific integrated circuits(ASIC), programmable logic devices (PLD), digital signal processors(DSP), field programmable gate array (FPGA), memory units, logic gates,registers, semiconductor device, chips, microchips, chip sets, and soforth. Examples of software elements may include software components,programs, applications, computer programs, application programs, systemprograms, software development programs, machine programs, operatingsystem software, middleware, firmware, software modules, routines,subroutines, functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces,application program interfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code,computer code, code segments, computer code segments, words, values,symbols, or any combination thereof. Determining whether an embodimentis implemented using hardware elements and/or software elements may varyin accordance with any number of factors, such as desired computationalrate, power levels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input datarates, output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and otherdesign or performance constraints, as desired for a givenimplementation.

The centralized server device 520 may execute communications operationsor logic for the media configuration system 100 using communicationscomponent 540. The communications component 540 may implement anywell-known communications techniques and protocols, such as techniquessuitable for use with packet-switched networks (e.g., public networkssuch as the Internet, private networks such as an enterprise intranet,and so forth), circuit-switched networks (e.g., the public switchedtelephone network), or a combination of packet-switched networks andcircuit-switched networks (with suitable gateways and translators). Thecommunications component 540 may include various types of standardcommunication elements, such as one or more communications interfaces,network interfaces, network interface cards (NIC), radios, wirelesstransmitters/receivers (transceivers), wired and/or wirelesscommunication media, physical connectors, and so forth. By way ofexample, and not limitation, communication media 512 includes wiredcommunications media and wireless communications media. Examples ofwired communications media may include a wire, cable, metal leads,printed circuit boards (PCB), backplanes, switch fabrics, semiconductormaterial, twisted-pair wire, co-axial cable, fiber optics, a propagatedsignal, and so forth. Examples of wireless communications media mayinclude acoustic, radio-frequency (RF) spectrum, infrared and otherwireless media.

The centralized server device 520 may implement the media support server170, including the client support component 340, media server searchcomponent 350, and media item evaluation component 360. The centralizedserver device 520 may communicate with other devices over acommunications media 512 using communications signals 514 via thecommunications component 540. The devices may be internal or external tothe centralized server device 520 as desired for a given implementation.The devices may include a plurality of client devices 510, such as maybe similar to and include client device 120.

FIG. 6 illustrates a block diagram of a distributed system 600. Thedistributed system 600 may distribute portions of the structure and/oroperations for the media configuration system 100 across multiplecomputing entities. Examples of distributed system 600 may includewithout limitation a client-server architecture, a 3-tier architecture,an N-tier architecture, a tightly-coupled or clustered architecture, apeer-to-peer architecture, a master-slave architecture, a shareddatabase architecture, and other types of distributed systems. Theembodiments are not limited in this context.

The distributed system 600 may comprise a client support server device610 and a media selection server device 650. In general, the serverdevices 610, 650 may be the same or similar to the centralized serverdevice 520 as described with reference to FIG. 5. For instance, theserver devices 610, 650 may each comprise a processing component 630 anda communications component 640 which are the same or similar to theprocessing component 530 and the communications component 540,respectively, as described with reference to FIG. 5. In another example,the server devices 610, 650 may communicate over a communications media612 using communications signals 614 via the communications components640.

The client support server device 610 may comprise or employ one or moreclient programs that operate to perform various methodologies inaccordance with the described embodiments. In one embodiment, forexample, the client support server device 610 may implement the clientsupport component 340

The media selection server device 650 may comprise or employ one or moreserver programs that operate to perform various methodologies inaccordance with the described embodiments. In one embodiment, forexample, the media selection server device 650 may implement the mediaserver search component 350 and media item evaluation component 360.

Signals 614 may correspond to, at least in part, the transmission ofinformation used in the selection of media items for client devices 610.Client devices 610 may generally correspond to client device 510described with reference to FIG. 5, and may include client device 120.

FIG. 7 illustrates an embodiment of an exemplary computing architecture700 suitable for implementing various embodiments as previouslydescribed. In one embodiment, the computing architecture 700 maycomprise or be implemented as part of an electronic device. Examples ofan electronic device may include those described with reference to FIG.5, among others. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

As used in this application, the terms “system” and “component” areintended to refer to a computer-related entity, either hardware, acombination of hardware and software, software, or software inexecution, examples of which are provided by the exemplary computingarchitecture 700. For example, a component can be, but is not limited tobeing, a process running on a processor, a processor, a hard disk drive,multiple storage drives (of optical and/or magnetic storage medium), anobject, an executable, a thread of execution, a program, and/or acomputer. By way of illustration, both an application running on aserver and the server can be a component. One or more components canreside within a process and/or thread of execution, and a component canbe localized on one computer and/or distributed between two or morecomputers. Further, components may be communicatively coupled to eachother by various types of communications media to coordinate operations.The coordination may involve the uni-directional or bi-directionalexchange of information. For instance, the components may communicateinformation in the form of signals communicated over the communicationsmedia. The information can be implemented as signals allocated tovarious signal lines. In such allocations, each message is a signal.Further embodiments, however, may alternatively employ data messages.Such data messages may be sent across various connections. Exemplaryconnections include parallel interfaces, serial interfaces, and businterfaces.

The computing architecture 700 includes various common computingelements, such as one or more processors, multi-core processors,co-processors, memory units, chipsets, controllers, peripherals,interfaces, oscillators, timing devices, video cards, audio cards,multimedia input/output (I/O) components, power supplies, and so forth.The embodiments, however, are not limited to implementation by thecomputing architecture 700.

As shown in FIG. 7, the computing architecture 700 comprises aprocessing unit 704, a system memory 706 and a system bus 708. Theprocessing unit 704 can be any of various commercially availableprocessors, including without limitation an AMD® Athlon®, Duron® andOpteron® processors; ARM® application, embedded and secure processors;IBM® and Motorola® DragonBall® and PowerPC® processors; IBM and Sony®Cell processors; Intel® Celeron®, Core (2) Duo®, Itanium®, Pentium®,Xeon®, and XScale® processors; and similar processors. Dualmicroprocessors, multi-core processors, and other multi-processorarchitectures may also be employed as the processing unit 704.

The system bus 708 provides an interface for system componentsincluding, but not limited to, the system memory 706 to the processingunit 704. The system bus 708 can be any of several types of busstructure that may further interconnect to a memory bus (with or withouta memory controller), a peripheral bus, and a local bus using any of avariety of commercially available bus architectures. Interface adaptersmay connect to the system bus 708 via a slot architecture. Example slotarchitectures may include without limitation Accelerated Graphics Port(AGP), Card Bus, (Extended) Industry Standard Architecture ((E)ISA),Micro Channel Architecture (MCA), NuBus, Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (Extended) (PCI(X)), PCI Express, Personal Computer MemoryCard International Association (PCMCIA), and the like.

The computing architecture 700 may comprise or implement variousarticles of manufacture. An article of manufacture may comprise acomputer-readable storage medium to store logic. Examples of acomputer-readable storage medium may include any tangible media capableof storing electronic data, including volatile memory or non-volatilememory, removable or non-removable memory, erasable or non-erasablememory, writeable or re-writeable memory, and so forth. Examples oflogic may include executable computer program instructions implementedusing any suitable type of code, such as source code, compiled code,interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code,object-oriented code, visual code, and the like. Embodiments may also beat least partly implemented as instructions contained in or on anon-transitory computer-readable medium, which may be read and executedby one or more processors to enable performance of the operationsdescribed herein.

The system memory 706 may include various types of computer-readablestorage media in the form of one or more higher speed memory units, suchas read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM(DRAM), Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), staticRAM (SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory, polymermemory such as ferroelectric polymer memory, ovonic memory, phase changeor ferroelectric memory, silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS)memory, magnetic or optical cards, an array of devices such as RedundantArray of Independent Disks (RAID) drives, solid state memory devices(e.g., USB memory, solid state drives (SSD) and any other type ofstorage media suitable for storing information. In the illustratedembodiment shown in FIG. 7, the system memory 706 can includenon-volatile memory 710 and/or volatile memory 712. A basic input/outputsystem (BIOS) can be stored in the non-volatile memory 710.

The computer 702 may include various types of computer-readable storagemedia in the form of one or more lower speed memory units, including aninternal (or external) hard disk drive (HDD) 714, a magnetic floppy diskdrive (FDD) 716 to read from or write to a removable magnetic disk 718,and an optical disk drive 720 to read from or write to a removableoptical disk 722 (e.g., a CD-ROM or DVD). The HDD 714, FDD 716 andoptical disk drive 720 can be connected to the system bus 708 by a HDDinterface 724, an FDD interface 726 and an optical drive interface 728,respectively. The HDD interface 724 for external drive implementationscan include at least one or both of Universal Serial Bus (USB) and IEEE1394 interface technologies.

The drives and associated computer-readable media provide volatileand/or nonvolatile storage of data, data structures, computer-executableinstructions, and so forth. For example, a number of program modules canbe stored in the drives and memory units 710, 712, including anoperating system 730, one or more application programs 732, otherprogram modules 734, and program data 736. In one embodiment, the one ormore application programs 732, other program modules 734, and programdata 736 can include, for example, the various applications and/orcomponents of the media configuration system 100.

A user can enter commands and information into the computer 702 throughone or more wire/wireless input devices, for example, a keyboard 738 anda pointing device, such as a mouse 740. Other input devices may includemicrophones, infra-red (IR) remote controls, radio-frequency (RF) remotecontrols, game pads, stylus pens, card readers, dongles, finger printreaders, gloves, graphics tablets, joysticks, keyboards, retina readers,touch screens (e.g., capacitive, resistive, etc.), trackballs,trackpads, sensors, styluses, and the like. These and other inputdevices are often connected to the processing unit 704 through an inputdevice interface 742 that is coupled to the system bus 708, but can beconnected by other interfaces such as a parallel port, IEEE 1394 serialport, a game port, a USB port, an IR interface, and so forth.

A monitor 744 or other type of display device is also connected to thesystem bus 708 via an interface, such as a video adaptor 746. Themonitor 744 may be internal or external to the computer 702. In additionto the monitor 744, a computer typically includes other peripheraloutput devices, such as speakers, printers, and so forth.

The computer 702 may operate in a networked environment using logicalconnections via wire and/or wireless communications to one or moreremote computers, such as a remote computer 748. The remote computer 748can be a workstation, a server computer, a router, a personal computer,portable computer, microprocessor-based entertainment appliance, a peerdevice or other common network node, and typically includes many or allof the elements described relative to the computer 702, although, forpurposes of brevity, only a memory/storage device 750 is illustrated.The logical connections depicted include wire/wireless connectivity to alocal area network (LAN) 752 and/or larger networks, for example, a widearea network (WAN) 754. Such LAN and WAN networking environments arecommonplace in offices and companies, and facilitate enterprise-widecomputer networks, such as intranets, all of which may connect to aglobal communications network, for example, the Internet.

When used in a LAN networking environment, the computer 702 is connectedto the LAN 752 through a wire and/or wireless communication networkinterface or adaptor 756. The adaptor 756 can facilitate wire and/orwireless communications to the LAN 752, which may also include awireless access point disposed thereon for communicating with thewireless functionality of the adaptor 756.

When used in a WAN networking environment, the computer 702 can includea modem 758, or is connected to a communications server on the WAN 754,or has other means for establishing communications over the WAN 754,such as by way of the Internet. The modem 758, which can be internal orexternal and a wire and/or wireless device, connects to the system bus708 via the input device interface 742. In a networked environment,program modules depicted relative to the computer 702, or portionsthereof, can be stored in the remote memory/storage device 750. It willbe appreciated that the network connections shown are exemplary andother means of establishing a communications link between the computerscan be used.

The computer 702 is operable to communicate with wire and wirelessdevices or entities using the IEEE 802 family of standards, such aswireless devices operatively disposed in wireless communication (e.g.,IEEE 802.7 over-the-air modulation techniques). This includes at leastWi-Fi (or Wireless Fidelity), WiMax, and Bluetooth™ wirelesstechnologies, among others. Thus, the communication can be a predefinedstructure as with a conventional network or simply an ad hoccommunication between at least two devices. Wi-Fi networks use radiotechnologies called IEEE 802.7x (a, b, g, n, etc.) to provide secure,reliable, fast wireless connectivity. A Wi-Fi network can be used toconnect computers to each other, to the Internet, and to wire networks(which use IEEE 802.3-related media and functions).

FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary communicationsarchitecture 800 suitable for implementing various embodiments aspreviously described. The communications architecture 800 includesvarious common communications elements, such as a transmitter, receiver,transceiver, radio, network interface, baseband processor, antenna,amplifiers, filters, power supplies, and so forth. The embodiments,however, are not limited to implementation by the communicationsarchitecture 800.

As shown in FIG. 8, the communications architecture 800 comprisesincludes one or more clients 802 and servers 804. The clients 802 mayimplement the client support server device 510. The servers 804 mayimplement the media selection server device 550. The clients 802 and theservers 804 are operatively connected to one or more respective clientdata stores 808 and server data stores 810 that can be employed to storeinformation local to the respective clients 802 and servers 804, such ascookies and/or associated contextual information.

The clients 802 and the servers 804 may communicate information betweeneach other using a communication framework 806. The communicationsframework 806 may implement any well-known communications techniques andprotocols. The communications framework 806 may be implemented as apacket-switched network (e.g., public networks such as the Internet,private networks such as an enterprise intranet, and so forth), acircuit-switched network (e.g., the public switched telephone network),or a combination of a packet-switched network and a circuit-switchednetwork (with suitable gateways and translators).

The communications framework 806 may implement various networkinterfaces arranged to accept, communicate, and connect to acommunications network. A network interface may be regarded as aspecialized form of an input output interface. Network interfaces mayemploy connection protocols including without limitation direct connect,Ethernet (e.g., thick, thin, twisted pair 10/100/1000 Base T, and thelike), token ring, wireless network interfaces, cellular networkinterfaces, IEEE 802.11a-x network interfaces, IEEE 802.16 networkinterfaces, IEEE 802.20 network interfaces, and the like. Further,multiple network interfaces may be used to engage with variouscommunications network types. For example, multiple network interfacesmay be employed to allow for the communication over broadcast,multicast, and unicast networks. Should processing requirements dictatea greater amount speed and capacity, distributed network controllerarchitectures may similarly be employed to pool, load balance, andotherwise increase the communicative bandwidth required by clients 802and the servers 804. A communications network may be any one and thecombination of wired and/or wireless networks including withoutlimitation a direct interconnection, a secured custom connection, aprivate network (e.g., an enterprise intranet), a public network (e.g.,the Internet), a Personal Area Network (PAN), a Local Area Network(LAN), a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN), an Operating Missions as Nodeson the Internet (OMNI), a Wide Area Network (WAN), a wireless network, acellular network, and other communications networks.

FIG. 9 illustrates an embodiment of a device 900 for use in amulticarrier OFDM system, such as the media configuration system 100.Device 900 may implement, for example, software components 960 asdescribed with reference to media configuration system 100 and/or alogic circuit 935. The logic circuit 935 may include physical circuitsto perform operations described for the media configuration system 100.As shown in FIG. 9, device 900 may include a radio interface 910,baseband circuitry 920, and computing platform 930, although embodimentsare not limited to this configuration.

The device 900 may implement some or all of the structure and/oroperations for the media configuration system 100 and/or logic circuit935 in a single computing entity, such as entirely within a singledevice. Alternatively, the device 900 may distribute portions of thestructure and/or operations for the media configuration system 100and/or logic circuit 935 across multiple computing entities using adistributed system architecture, such as a client-server architecture, a3-tier architecture, an N-tier architecture, a tightly-coupled orclustered architecture, a peer-to-peer architecture, a master-slavearchitecture, a shared database architecture, and other types ofdistributed systems. The embodiments are not limited in this context.

In one embodiment, radio interface 910 may include a component orcombination of components adapted for transmitting and/or receivingsingle carrier or multi-carrier modulated signals (e.g., includingcomplementary code keying (CCK) and/or orthogonal frequency divisionmultiplexing (OFDM) symbols) although the embodiments are not limited toany specific over-the-air interface or modulation scheme. Radiointerface 910 may include, for example, a receiver 912, a transmitter916 and/or a frequency synthesizer 914. Radio interface 910 may includebias controls, a crystal oscillator and/or one or more antennas 918. Inanother embodiment, radio interface 910 may use externalvoltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs), surface acoustic wave filters,intermediate frequency (IF) filters and/or RF filters, as desired. Dueto the variety of potential RF interface designs an expansivedescription thereof is omitted.

Baseband circuitry 920 may communicate with radio interface 910 toprocess receive and/or transmit signals and may include, for example, ananalog-to-digital converter 922 for down converting received signals, adigital-to-analog converter 924 for up converting signals fortransmission. Further, baseband circuitry 920 may include a baseband orphysical layer (PHY) processing circuit 956 for PHY link layerprocessing of respective receive/transmit signals. Baseband circuitry920 may include, for example, a processing circuit 928 for medium accesscontrol (MAC)/data link layer processing. Baseband circuitry 920 mayinclude a memory controller 932 for communicating with processingcircuit 928 and/or a computing platform 930, for example, via one ormore interfaces 934.

In some embodiments, PHY processing circuit 926 may include a frameconstruction and/or detection module, in combination with additionalcircuitry such as a buffer memory, to construct and/or deconstructcommunication frames, such as radio frames. Alternatively or inaddition, MAC processing circuit 928 may share processing for certain ofthese functions or perform these processes independent of PHY processingcircuit 926. In some embodiments, MAC and PHY processing may beintegrated into a single circuit.

The computing platform 930 may provide computing functionality for thedevice 900. As shown, the computing platform 930 may include aprocessing component 940. In addition to, or alternatively of, thebaseband circuitry 920, the device 900 may execute processing operationsor logic for the media configuration system 100 and logic circuit 935using the processing component 940. The processing component 940 (and/orPHY 926 and/or MAC 928) may comprise various hardware elements, softwareelements, or a combination of both. Examples of hardware elements mayinclude devices, logic devices, components, processors, microprocessors,circuits, processor circuits, circuit elements (e.g., transistors,resistors, capacitors, inductors, and so forth), integrated circuits,application specific integrated circuits (ASIC), programmable logicdevices (PLD), digital signal processors (DSP), field programmable gatearray (FPGA), memory units, logic gates, registers, semiconductordevice, chips, microchips, chip sets, and so forth. Examples of softwareelements may include software components, programs, applications,computer programs, application programs, system programs, softwaredevelopment programs, machine programs, operating system software,middleware, firmware, software modules, routines, subroutines,functions, methods, procedures, software interfaces, application programinterfaces (API), instruction sets, computing code, computer code, codesegments, computer code segments, words, values, symbols, or anycombination thereof. Determining whether an embodiment is implementedusing hardware elements and/or software elements may vary in accordancewith any number of factors, such as desired computational rate, powerlevels, heat tolerances, processing cycle budget, input data rates,output data rates, memory resources, data bus speeds and other design orperformance constraints, as desired for a given implementation.

The computing platform 930 may further include other platform components950. Other platform components 950 include common computing elements,such as one or more processors, multi-core processors, co-processors,memory units, chipsets, controllers, peripherals, interfaces,oscillators, timing devices, video cards, audio cards, multimediainput/output (I/O) components (e.g., digital displays), power supplies,and so forth. Examples of memory units may include without limitationvarious types of computer readable and machine readable storage media inthe form of one or more higher speed memory units, such as read-onlymemory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM),Double-Data-Rate DRAM (DDRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), static RAM(SRAM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM),electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory, polymermemory such as ferroelectric polymer memory, ovonic memory, phase changeor ferroelectric memory, silicon-oxide-nitride-oxide-silicon (SONOS)memory, magnetic or optical cards, an array of devices such as RedundantArray of Independent Disks (RAID) drives, solid state memory devices(e.g., USB memory, solid state drives (SSD) and any other type ofstorage media suitable for storing information.

Device 900 may be, for example, an ultra-mobile device, a mobile device,a fixed device, a machine-to-machine (M2M) device, a personal digitalassistant (PDA), a mobile computing device, a smart phone, a telephone,a digital telephone, a cellular telephone, user equipment, eBookreaders, a handset, a one-way pager, a two-way pager, a messagingdevice, a computer, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, alaptop computer, a notebook computer, a netbook computer, a handheldcomputer, a tablet computer, a server, a server array or server farm, aweb server, a network server, an Internet server, a work station, amini-computer, a main frame computer, a supercomputer, a networkappliance, a web appliance, a distributed computing system,multiprocessor systems, processor-based systems, consumer electronics,programmable consumer electronics, game devices, television, digitaltelevision, set top box, wireless access point, base station, node B,evolved node B (eNB), subscriber station, mobile subscriber center,radio network controller, router, hub, gateway, bridge, switch, machine,or combination thereof. Accordingly, functions and/or specificconfigurations of device 900 described herein, may be included oromitted in various embodiments of device 900, as suitably desired. Insome embodiments, device 900 may be configured to be compatible withprotocols and frequencies associated one or more of the 3GPP LTESpecifications and/or IEEE 902.16 Standards for WMANs, and/or otherbroadband wireless networks, cited herein, although the embodiments arenot limited in this respect.

Embodiments of device 900 may be implemented using single input singleoutput (SISO) architectures. However, certain implementations mayinclude multiple antennas (e.g., antennas 918) for transmission and/orreception using adaptive antenna techniques for beamforming or spatialdivision multiple access (SDMA) and/or using MIMO communicationtechniques.

The components and features of device 900 may be implemented using anycombination of discrete circuitry, application specific integratedcircuits (ASICs), logic gates and/or single chip architectures. Further,the features of device 900 may be implemented using microcontrollers,programmable logic arrays and/or microprocessors or any combination ofthe foregoing where suitably appropriate. It is noted that hardware,firmware and/or software elements may be collectively or individuallyreferred to herein as “logic” or “circuit.”

It should be appreciated that the exemplary device 900 shown in theblock diagram of FIG. 9 may represent one functionally descriptiveexample of many potential implementations. Accordingly, division,omission or inclusion of block functions depicted in the accompanyingfigures does not infer that the hardware components, circuits, softwareand/or elements for implementing these functions would be necessarily bedivided, omitted, or included in embodiments.

A computer-implemented method may comprise receiving search terminformation from a client device at a server device; transmitting thesearch term information to a plurality of media servers; receiving aplurality of media items from the plurality of media servers in responseto the transmitting of the search term information to the plurality ofmedia servers; assigning priority weights to each of the plurality ofmedia items; selecting one or more high-priority media items from theplurality of media items based on the assigned priority weights; andconfiguring the client device with the selected one or morehigh-priority media items.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise determining that theclient device is on a cellular data network; determining one or moresmall-file-size media items of the plurality of media items; and addinga small-file-size weight boost to the priority weights for the one ormore small-file size media items based on the determining that theclient device is on the cellular data network.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise translating at leasta portion of the search term information from a first language to asecond language prior to transmitting the search term information to atleast one media server of the plurality of media servers, the portion ofthe search term information transmitted to the at least one media serverin the second language.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise identifying one ormore preferred-partner media items received from one or morepreferred-partner media servers of the plurality of media servers; andadding a preferred-partner weight boost to the priority weights for theone or more preferred-partner media items based on the identifying ofthe one or more preferred-partner media items as being received from theone or more preferred-partner media servers.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise assigning the one ormore preferred-partner media servers a preferred-partner status based ona historic use rate of previous media items distributed by the one ormore preferred-partner media servers.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise identifying one ormore popular media items based on a historic sharing rate for the one ormore popular media items; and adding a popular-item weight boost to theone or more popular media items.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise identifying one ormore unpopular media items based on a historic sharing rate for the oneor more unpopular media items indicating that a historic sharing ratefor the one or more unpopular media items falls below an unpopularitythreshold, wherein the historic sharing rate represents a comparisonbetween how often a media item is shared and how often the media item isoffered for sharing; and subtracting an unpopular-item weight penaltyfrom the one or more unpopular media items.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise determining that twoor more of the plurality of media items are duplicate media items; andeliminating one or more of the duplicate media items, wherein the one ormore of the duplicate media items are selected for eliminating based onan identification of an associated media server.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise wherein eliminatingone or more of the duplicate media items is performed based on networktransmission performance of one or more associated media servers.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the search terminformation associated with a messaging interaction between a sendinguser associated with the client device and a recipient user, furthercomprising: identifying one or more recipient-appropriate media itemsbased on a historic reply rate for the recipient user; and adding arecipient-preference boost to the one or more recipient-appropriatemedia items.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the one or morerecipient-appropriate media items selected based on a correspondencebetween one or more media types of the one or more recipient-appropriatemedia items and a detected user preference for the one or more mediatypes based on the historic reply rate for the recipient user.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the search terminformation associated with a messaging interaction, further comprising:including at least a portion of a media content history for themessaging interaction with the search term information transmitted tothe plurality of media servers.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise the media contenthistory comprising a plurality of keywords associated with media itemsexchanged in the messaging interaction.

A computer-implemented method may further comprise caching the pluralityof media items in association with the search term information.

An apparatus may comprise a processor circuit on a device; a clientsupport component operative on the processor circuit to receive searchterm information from a client device at a server device; and configurethe client device with a selected one or more high-priority media items;a media server search component operative to transmit the search terminformation to a plurality of media servers; receive a plurality ofmedia items from the plurality of media servers in response to thetransmitting of the search term information to the plurality of mediaservers; and select the one or more high-priority media items from theplurality of media items based on priority weights; and a media itemevaluation component operative to assign the priority weights to each ofthe plurality of media items. The apparatus may be operative toimplement any of the computer-implemented methods described herein.

At least one computer-readable storage medium may comprise instructionsthat, when executed, cause a system to perform any of thecomputer-implemented methods described herein.

Some embodiments may be described using the expression “one embodiment”or “an embodiment” along with their derivatives. These terms mean that aparticular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connectionwith the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment. Theappearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in various places in thespecification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment.Further, some embodiments may be described using the expression“coupled” and “connected” along with their derivatives. These terms arenot necessarily intended as synonyms for each other. For example, someembodiments may be described using the terms “connected” and/or“coupled” to indicate that two or more elements are in direct physicalor electrical contact with each other. The term “coupled,” however, mayalso mean that two or more elements are not in direct contact with eachother, but yet still co-operate or interact with each other.

With general reference to notations and nomenclature used herein, thedetailed descriptions herein may be presented in terms of programprocedures executed on a computer or network of computers. Theseprocedural descriptions and representations are used by those skilled inthe art to most effectively convey the substance of their work to othersskilled in the art.

A procedure is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistentsequence of operations leading to a desired result. These operations arethose requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually,though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical,magnetic or optical signals capable of being stored, transferred,combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It proves convenient attimes, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to thesesignals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers,or the like. It should be noted, however, that all of these and similarterms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities andare merely convenient labels applied to those quantities.

Further, the manipulations performed are often referred to in terms,such as adding or comparing, which are commonly associated with mentaloperations performed by a human operator. No such capability of a humanoperator is necessary, or desirable in most cases, in any of theoperations described herein which form part of one or more embodiments.Rather, the operations are machine operations. Useful machines forperforming operations of various embodiments include general purposedigital computers or similar devices.

Various embodiments also relate to apparatus or systems for performingthese operations. This apparatus may be specially constructed for therequired purpose or it may comprise a general purpose computer asselectively activated or reconfigured by a computer program stored inthe computer. The procedures presented herein are not inherently relatedto a particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purposemachines may be used with programs written in accordance with theteachings herein, or it may prove convenient to construct morespecialized apparatus to perform the required method steps. The requiredstructure for a variety of these machines will appear from thedescription given.

It is emphasized that the Abstract of the Disclosure is provided toallow a reader to quickly ascertain the nature of the technicaldisclosure. It is submitted with the understanding that it will not beused to interpret or limit the scope or meaning of the claims. Inaddition, in the foregoing Detailed Description, it can be seen thatvarious features are grouped together in a single embodiment for thepurpose of streamlining the disclosure. This method of disclosure is notto be interpreted as reflecting an intention that the claimedembodiments require more features than are expressly recited in eachclaim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive subject matterlies in less than all features of a single disclosed embodiment. Thusthe following claims are hereby incorporated into the DetailedDescription, with each claim standing on its own as a separateembodiment. In the appended claims, the terms “including” and “in which”are used as the plain-English equivalents of the respective terms“comprising” and “wherein,” respectively. Moreover, the terms “first,”“second,” “third,” and so forth, are used merely as labels, and are notintended to impose numerical requirements on their objects.

What has been described above includes examples of the disclosedarchitecture. It is, of course, not possible to describe everyconceivable combination of components and/or methodologies, but one ofordinary skill in the art may recognize that many further combinationsand permutations are possible. Accordingly, the novel architecture isintended to embrace all such alterations, modifications and variationsthat fall within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:receiving search term information from a client device at a serverdevice, the search term information being generated from a messaginginteraction between the client device and a recipient device;transmitting the search term information to a plurality of mediaservers; receiving a plurality of media items from the plurality ofmedia servers in response to the transmitting of the search terminformation to the plurality of media servers; assigning priorityweights to each of the plurality of media items, the assigned priorityweights based at least on a preference of a user at the recipient deicefor receiving the media items in messages sent from the client device inthe messaging interaction; selecting one or more high-priority mediaitems from the plurality of media items based on the assigned priorityweights; and configuring the client device with the selected one or morehigh-priority media items; wherein the preferences of the user at therecipient device for receiving the media items is based on a historicreply rate for the recipient user, the historic reply rate beingdetermined based on how often the user at the recipient device hasresponded to a message containing a media item of a particular type. 2.The method of claim 1, further comprising: determining that the clientdevice is on a cellular data network; determining one or moresmall-file-size media items of the plurality of media items; andincreasing the priority weights for the one or more small-file sizemedia items based on the determining that the client device is on thecellular data network.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:Translating at least a portion of the search term information from afirst language to a second language prior to transmitting the searchterm information to at least one media server of the plurality of mediaservers, the portion of the search term information transmitted to theat least one media server in the second language.
 4. The method of claim1, further comprising: identifying one or more preferred-partner mediaitems received from one or more preferred-partner media servers of theplurality of media servers; and increasing the priority weights for theone or more preferred-partner media items based on the identifying ofthe one or more preferred-partner media items as being received from theone or more preferred-partner media servers.
 5. The method of claim 1,further comprising: identifying one or more popular media items based ona historic sharing rate for the one or more popular media items; andincreasing the priority weights for the one or more popular media items.6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: identifying one or moreunpopular media items based on a historic sharing rate for the one ormore unpopular media items indicating that a historic sharing rate forthe one or more unpopular media items falls below an unpopularitythreshold, wherein the historic sharing rate represents a comparisonbetween how often a media item is shared and how often the media item isoffered for sharing; and decreasing the priority weights for the one ormore unpopular media items.
 7. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: determining that two or more of the plurality of media itemsare duplicate media items; and eliminating one or more of the duplicatemedia items, wherein the one or more of the duplicate media items areselected for eliminating based on an identification of an associatedmedia server.
 8. The method of claim 1, further comprising: including atleast a portion of a media content history for the messaging interactionwith the search term information transmitted to the plurality of mediaservers.
 9. An apparatus, comprising: a processor circuit on a device; aclient support component operative on the processor circuit to receivesearch term information from a client device at a server device; andconfigure the client device with a selected one or more high-prioritymedia items, the search term information being generated from amessaging interaction between the client device and a recipient device;a media server search component operative to transmit the search terminformation to a plurality of media servers; receive a plurality ofmedia items from the plurality of media servers in response to thetransmitting of the search term information to the plurality of mediaservers; and select the one or more high-priority media items form theplurality of media items based on priority weights; and a media itemevaluation component operative to: assign the priority weights to eachof the plurality of media items, the assigned priority weights based atleast on a preference of a user at the recipient deice for receiving themedia items in messages sent from the client device in the messaginginteraction; and identify the preference of the user at the recipientdevice for receiving the media items based on a historic reply rate forthe recipient user, the historic reply rate being determined based onhow often the user at the recipient device has responded to a messagecontaining a media item of a particular type.
 10. The apparatus of claim9, further comprising: the client support component operative todetermine that the client device is on a cellular data network; themedia item evaluation component operative to determine one or moresmall-file-size media items of the plurality of media items; andincrease the priority weights for the one or more small-file size mediaitems based on the determining that the client device is on the cellulardata network.
 11. The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising: themedia server search component operative to translate at least a portionof the search term information from a first language to a secondlanguage prior to transmitting the search term information to at leastone media server of the plurality of media servers, the portion of thesearch term information transmitted to the at least one media server inthe second language.
 12. The apparatus of claim 9, further comprising:the media item evaluation component operative to identify one or morepopular media items based on a historic sharing rate for the one or morepopular media items; and increase the priority weights for the one ormore popular media items.
 13. The method of claim 1, further comprising:the media server search component operative to include at least aportion of a media content history for the messaging interaction withthe search term information transmitted to the plurality of mediaservers.
 14. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storagemedium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause a system to:receive search term information from a client device at a server device,the search term information being generated from a messaging interactionbetween the client device and a recipient device; transmit the searchterm information to a plurality of media servers; receive a plurality ofmedia items from the plurality of media servers in response to thetransmitting of the search term information to the plurality of mediaservers; assign priority weights to each of the plurality of mediaitems, the assigned priority weights based at least on a preference of auser at the recipient deice for receiving the media items in messagessent from the client device in the messaging interaction; select one ormore high-priority media items from the plurality of media items basedon the assigned priority weights; and configure the client device withthe selected one or more high-priority media items; wherein thepreferences of the user at the recipient device for receiving the mediaitems is based on a historic reply rate for the recipient user, thehistoric reply rate being determined based on how often the user at therecipient device has responded to a message containing a media item of aparticular type.
 15. The non-transitory computer-readable storage mediumof claim 14, comprising further instructions that, when executed, causea system to: determine that the client device is on a cellular datanetwork; determine one or more small-file-size media items of theplurality of media items; and increase the priority weights for the oneor more small-file size media items based on the determining that theclient device is on the cellular data network.
 16. The non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium of claim 14, comprising furtherinstructions that, when executed, cause a system to: identify one ormore popular media items based on a historic sharing rate for the one ormore popular media items; and increase the priority weights for the oneor more popular media items.
 17. The non-transitory computer-readablestorage medium of claim 14, comprising further instructions that, whenexecuted, cause a system to: include at least a portion of a mediacontent history for the messaging interaction with the search terminformation transmitted to the plurality of media servers.